I would like to call foo(n) but stop it if it runs for more than 10 seconds. What's a good way to do this?
I can see that I could in theory modify foo itself to periodically check how long it has been running for but I would prefer not to do that.
Here you go:
import multiprocessing import time # Your foo function def foo(n): for i in range(10000 * n): print "Tick" time.sleep(1) if __name__ == '__main__': # Start foo as a process p = multiprocessing.Process(target=foo, name="Foo", args=(10,)) p.start() # Wait 10 seconds for foo time.sleep(10) # Terminate foo p.terminate() # Cleanup p.join() This will wait 10 seconds for foo and then kill it.
Update
Terminate the process only if it is running.
# If thread is active if p.is_alive(): print "foo is running... let's kill it..." # Terminate foo p.terminate() Update 2 : Recommended
Use join with timeout. If foo finishes before timeout, then main can continue.
# Wait a maximum of 10 seconds for foo # Usage: join([timeout in seconds]) p.join(10) # If thread is active if p.is_alive(): print "foo is running... let's kill it..." # Terminate foo p.terminate() p.join() 
timeout doesn't appear in your answer). This is very helpful and informative. If anyone ever upvotes this question (the linked questions don't have such useful answers it seems) then I will upvote you of course. I can't currently it seems.
import signal #Sets an handler function, you can comment it if you don't need it. signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM,handler_function) #Sets an alarm in 10 seconds #If uncaught will terminate your process. signal.alarm(10) The timeout is not very precise, but can do if you don't need extreme precision.
Another way is to use the resource module, and set the maximum CPU time.
foo and not the whole python script for example? I want my script to carry on, just for the call to foo to timeout after 10 seconds.
foo? Is it a loop? Are you going to runfooas a different thread?foo, but otherwise see this question: stackoverflow.com/questions/492519/… or this one: stackoverflow.com/questions/4158502/…